Diario del proyecto City Nature Challenge 2020: INLAND EMPIRE

We want to say thanks for participating in the Inland Empire’s first ever City Nature Challenge! Despite a global pandemic, we had GREAT participation with 486 people submitting 10,900 observations in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties combined! So far, 5,541 observations have made it to ResearchGrade, which is amazing for researchers using iNaturalist data in our region. We landed in 19th place, in terms of number of observations, out of 244 cities! Not bad for our first time 😊

Overall, thousands more people participated in the global CNC compared to last year, and even with 150,000 fewer observations compared to last year, we still ended up documenting more species than ever!

Here are the collective results:
Observations: 815,258
Species: 32,500+, including more than 1,300 rare/endangered/threatened species
Observers: 41,165

Most-observed species globally: Common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Highlights from around the U.S. and the world include a relatable fox squirrel trying to beat the heat in Los Angeles (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43187956) ,
A spotted harlequin snake midway through a meal in South Africa (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43606795),
A critically endangered harlequin frog in Panama (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43676237),
Three sea-faring snails racing across a puddle in Calabasas (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43784379),
Honduras’s first observation of a rare orchid (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43257711),
A parasitic fungus erupting from a wasp in Tennessee (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43928356),
A stunning pitviper from the Philippines (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43624520),
and the first record in over 40 years of a white-spotted slimy salamander in Arlington County near Washington DC (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43438559).

The CNC also led to the biggest week of observations on iNaturalist again! We plan on the Inland Empire participating every year and look forward to working with you again next year, and hopefully under less-challenging circumstances.